Tag Archives: Rail transport

I’m sure those of you who live in the UK have heard all about the never-ending increases in train fares, which have continuted with another hike from this week. My weekly train fare from Chichester to Portsmouth is now £28.90 – that’s an increase of £2.10, or almost 8%. For a journey that takes an average of 25 minutes. At a time when the cost of everything – food, energy, etc – is going up, and wages are standing still or worse going down. I now spend more on train travel to work than I do on food each month.

It’s not even as if we get a decent service for it. Most mornings I board trains that are overcrowded, with no toilets, and seats that seem to have all the padding of one layer of cardboard. The trains being used on the Brighton to Portsmouth line are often renovated Class 313 rolling stock (seen above), which are actually over 35 years old! So much for our inflated fares paying for investment… I think we are quite entitled to ask where our money is going, and how huge increases can be justified.

If anyone doesn’t travel on trains, I cannot stress enough to not believe the PR that the train companies spout. There are more cancellations, delays etc than they claim, but they use all kinds of ruses to massage their figures. Often, if a train is more than 10 minutes late, or whatever the cut-off time is, it will be cancelled. You will then see the train you hoped to catch zoom past, empty and out of service. Or the train might terminate a couple of stops down from its final destination. And the amount of times I have checked train times online and they looked fine, only to get to the station and find that there are cancellations and delays. Does anyone think they are trying to give them impression that all is well, when in fact it is not? I’ve tried to find out some more about the business behind Southern – my carrier of no-choice – but their website is a complete baffle, and their parent company Govia‘s website is minimalist to say the least. Anyone would think that they don’t want people to know how much money they are making!

Only a complete delusion artist would attempt to argue that privatising the railways has been succesful. Sucessive Governments hoped, in a Rumsfeldian manner, that investment would make them blossom, competition would bring efficiency, and with the railways off the Government’s balance sheet, the way would be free for big business to gain. It just hasn’t worked, aside from the ideological arguments. Exposing such a crucial part of the nation’s transport infrastructure to commercial forces has resulted in exploitation rather than investment and improvement.

The difference between rail travel in Britain and on the continent is startling. The DB in germany is a model of efficiency – cheap, fast, reliable, clean and comfortable. DB is operated as a commercial venture, but 100% owned by the German government – hence the Government has input into services, fares etc. Apparently, however, there is a deabte ongoing in Germany over privatisation. The example of British Railways since privatisation has to scream one word – DON’T! The Dutch NS is owned by the Dutch Government, and the French SNCF is also state owned. All are vastly superior to the British Rail system.

Trains should be a service, provided for people to go about their working lives at the lowest cost possible. The spectre of commuters – many facing years of pay freezes and cuts – facing fare hikes of up to 10% is galling, whilst shareholders earn very nice profits for doing absolutely nothing.